The Giver, The Receiver, and The Congregation

For my first post I have decided to talk about a book that I recently re-read. This book is called The Giver by Lois Lowry. Some of you may remember this from a middle school or high school English class. My first personal encounter with this book was in seventh grade English class. All of my early life I never really enjoyed reading in any sense. (Its only been in the last year that I have actually engaged in reading outside of that which was required for school) This book, however, stands out in my memory as something I really enjoyed, although I couldn't exactly remember why, so when I saw it on a bookshelf for 99 cents at a Salvation Army I simply couldn't resist. This book is considered to be a "children's novel" but as I read through it for a second time I was reminded as to why I probably don't remember much about it. The writing itself is incredibly easy to read, even rudimentary at times, but the bigger concepts such as a utopian society, the importance of knowledge, and so on, seem to be a bit complex for the likes of seventh graders. Regardless, rereading this book was a very cool experience for me and I found a few parallels that I thought would be interesting to share. I will outline the general setting, plot, and characters in the subsequent paragraph before I assert some of the somewhat abstract parallels I took from it. I will try and make it short and to the point, so bear with me.

The setting of The Giver is in a futuristic community, which is presented as utopian in the beginning. However, as the book progresses it becomes clear that this community is much more dystopian and than utopian. This community has converted to a societal structure called "Sameness" which is self-explanatory. Every person wears the same clothes, rides the same bicycles with identification tags, same haircuts, etc. Families are hand picked by the "Committee of Elders" and careers are chosen by this same committee upon a child becoming "a twelve"(12 years old). This society frowns on any form of variation from this sameness and such behavior is even outlawed. All conversations amongst family units are heard by the Committee of Elders via a speaker that is in every house. I digress. The point is EVERYTHING is the same.

Jonas, the main character, is just another child in this society. We are introduced to Jonas in the year before his ceremony of the Twelves in which all the children are given their life-long career. Jonas is skeptical as to what will be chosen for him and is anxious to find out, like all the other Elevens are. Skipping ahead, the ceremony of the twelves begins and the committee begins to, one by one, assign each child of that birth year with their job. Each child is given a number when they are born which is specific to the order in which they "became a One." Jonas is number 19. When it is Jonas’ turn to receive his place in society his number is skipped. The whole community, which is present for the ceremony, immediately becomes very restless due to a deviation from the normal events of the ceremony. Jonas was the whore in church; all eyes were on him and chances are he was sweating profusely. Like I mentioned before, everything is the same and any little event that hinders the community’s uniformity is cause for widespread anxiety. The crowd continues to restlessly stir as every other child is given their specific place in society. Upon completion the speaker calls Jonas up the stage and explains that his position in the society is one that is given very rarely. "The Receiver of Memory."  The speaker explains that Jonas has a quality that is called "seeing beyond" which only one other person in the community has, the current Receiver of Memory. This job is said to be one of great honor but also one which is accompanied by much pain and suffering. Jonas is naturally terrified. Like all the other children, Jonas shows up to his first day of apprenticeship under the current Receiver. The current receiver is an old man with pale eyes that resemble Jonas'. The old man explains the job of the Receiver of Memory. His job is to hold ALL the memories of the world before "Sameness". Jonas is obviously awestruck to know there ever existed a time and place in which there was no “Sameness”. The memories of things like color, wind, snow, elephants are all held by the receiver in order to maintain "Sameness" amongst the community. But along with all these fantastic and beautiful memories there are the tragic ones. Memories of war, poverty, illness, pain, and so on. The memories of humanity as we know all must be held by this 12 year old boy. The purpose of this is so the community can call upon the Receiver of Memory and his wisdom in order to deal with anything that could possibly rupture the sameness of the community. The Giver, as the old man comes to be known, transmits these memories to him by laying hands on his back and sending him the memory. The old man is deeply pained by these memories and his body is too weak to handle them at times. A heavy burden, to say the least.

Now for what came to my head as I was reading this children's novel. I have been dabbling (hope that’s a word) in some very progressive ideas about Christianity, the modern state of the church, as well as some philosophical works. I say this because some of the ideas/philosophies/viewpoints I have gained from reading these things are very much behind what I got out of The Giver.

This society Jonas lives in, for me, is strikingly similar to the state of Christianity here in the United States. Modern day churches are very keen on telling you what to believe. And people believe accordingly. This is a terrible problem for me. Peter Rollins has a chapter in his book, Insurrection, titled "I Don't Have to Believe; My Pastor Does That For Me." Without going into depth, I think you can see what my point is. Like the society in The Giver, I think the modern day church frowns upon beliefs, liturgies, and actions that are different from that of the mass population. Contrary to popular belief, the things your Pastor says on Sunday morning are not the end-all-be-all of Christianity. This is not to say that pastors don't have good things to say. Because some of them do. However, the Bible is as much a historical text as it is a holy text and needs to be read as such. Many people quote bible verses and say "what it means to them" when in fact the historical context or original Greek meaning is completely different. I'm afraid that many Christians today hear what they want to hear when they read the Bible, which is heartbreaking to me. People build corporations, even lives, around specific verses that are ripped out of their context. 

In the Giver, The Receiver of Memory must hold the weight of all the pains of humanities past. He must do this because if he didn't the general public would have access to them. Throwing their "Sameness" out the window. The society chose to do this so they could live in a society without pain or suffering. The only word that comes to mind is complacency. They seek to live a life in which they are willfully blind. For me, this is another mark of the modern day church. Pastors tell their congregations that everything is going to be alright.... As long as you tithe, as long as you pray everyday, as long as you "get in the word', and so on. The fact of the matter is that sometimes everything is NOT going to be okay. Existence can be an atrocity. That doesn't mean we should simply not acknowledge the things that are indeed terrible. Many times, there is great beauty to be found within tragedy and to willfully ignore the atrocious is to also ignore the transcendent beauty that comes out of tragedy or even lies within tragedy itself. Furthermore, I am arguing against the deliberate casting out of hardship onto something that was not meant to bear it. Which leads me to my next comparison with The Giver.. 

The Receiver of Memory. Job Description - to bear all the pain. To relinquish suffering so that we can live happy lives. To be called upon only in times of need or when life, as we know it, has gone awry.  Sound familiar?  "Jesus paid it all” they say. I think in some senses we have made God and Jesus our receivers of memory. How can we, mere human beings, say that God is just for us? That he is there solely to relinquish us of our pains?  The cosmic magnitude of God is far too great for this as is the revolutionary, paradigm shifting, and even insurrectionary works of Jesus of Nazareth. To me, this is putting God in a neat little shadow box that he simply doesn't fit in. 

To conclude I want to challenge all of you to "see beyond" as Jonas and The Giver do. Come to your beliefs by gathering them yourself. Don't believe everything you are told by those who claim to have authority. Ask questions that people are afraid to ask. Make some people uncomfortable. The God conversation is one that will undoubtedly go on for all of time. Take part. Everything I just asserted could be completely and utterly wrong and misleading. The modern day orthodoxy of the Church could be exactly how it’s supposed to be. Agree or disagree with me, all I ask is that you seek to break normalcy in some way. Think outside of what is comfortable for you. If we don’t challenge that which we call “normal” will we not risk spiraling into the Sameness depicted in The Giver?

“Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous”

-Voltaire